Albino Cory Problem

[ChuckV]

Hello everyone!! I seem to have a problem that seems to be specific to
my albino corys. They begin to lose their barbels then there fins. They end
up looking like they have been shaved of barbels and fins. Otherwise they feed well
and are active. They just look terrible and cannot figure out why.

Has anyone else had this sort of problem. Any help is appreciated!!

 

[Inchworm]

Hi ChuckV

Welcome to the forum!

The first possibility is that the substrate (sand or gravel) could be rough or sharp. This would effect the corys but not the other fish since the corys spend so much time sitting on it and sifting through it with their barbels.

The other reason corys have problems with erosion is bacterial infection. Since all the waste matter and any uneaten food ends up on the bottom, it's possible that there is a harmful strain of bacteria feeding on it.

What's the temperature of the water?

 

[ChuckV]

The tank has been set up a couple years and I have had the problem with the corys since early on. Right now I have the tank running
at 82-84 because I had an ich problem with my bleeding hearts. Treated them with API Super ICH Cure about
a week ago and I am still running my temp high for the next week to hopefully eliminate any resifdual parasites.

I realize the temp may be a bit high for the corys but I usually run the tank at 76-78.

I do gravel cleaning every week with a 15-20 % water change. I try to keep the bottom shuld be fairly
clean.

I usually do not have any problems but the ich is the first time in many years and the cory problem has been ongoing.

I realize the gravel could be eroding the barbels but even the dorsal fin? It is something specific to my corys.
Do not know what!!

Hi ChuckV

Welcome to the forum!

The first possibility is that the substrate (sand or gravel) could be rough or sharp. This would effect the corys but not the other fish since the corys spend so much time sitting on it and sifting through it with their barbels.

The other reason corys have problems with erosion is bacterial infection. Since all the waste matter and any uneaten food ends up on the bottom, it's possible that there is a harmful strain of bacteria feeding on it.

What's the temperature of the water?

 

[ChuckV]

I want to add that this problem is in 2 of my tanks. They have the same parameters and
affects only my corys.

May sound ridiculous I know. I am wondering if it is not a problem that came with the fish.
I have had them about 1 year and got all of them from the same place.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi ChuckV

If your corys are C. aeneus, albinos, the chances are great that they were raised on a large fish farm somewhere. I have not heard of them being genetically prone to this kind of problem, but I guess it's possible.

A low level bacterial infection is also possible and is probably more likely. The risk here is that it could spread to your other fish too.

 

[ChuckV]

I agree that it could be a bacterial infection. Do you have any suggestions of how I could treat it just
in case?

Do you know any treatments available that will not harm my biological filter?

I would appreciate any help or suggestions.

ChuckV

Hi ChuckV

If your corys are C. aeneus, albinos, the chances are great that they were raised on a large fish farm somewhere. I have not heard of them being genetically prone to this kind of problem, but I guess it's possible.

A low level bacterial infection is also possible and is probably more likely. The risk here is that it could spread to your other fish too.

 

[Luketendo]

What other fish do you have in the tank, how big is the tank?

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Chuck

Corys are pretty sturdy little fish, but they can get sick when their resistance becomes lowered due to any of a number of stressful conditions. These conditions will need to be remedied before you can expect to cure your fish.

Some examples of conditions that can lead to bacterial infections are low oxygen content in the water, elevated nitrate or nitrate levels, overstocking, overfeeding, temperature fluctuations, especially with rapid warming, aggressive tankmates, etc. I doubt that the medication you are using to treat the ich is doing them any good right now either.

Since your corys are the only ones effected at this time, why not move them into a quarantine tank and medicate them there? They probably never had the ich, so don't need treatment for it. A good broad spectrum antibiotic such as tetracycline, Kanamycin, etc. will cure the bacterial infection, but is apt to kill your beneficial bacteria. In the meanwhile, you will have the opportunity to clean up your tank before putting them back.

Edit: Please keep the water temperature below 75 degrees F. and maintain excellent aereation in the quarantine tank. Do frequent water changes and replace the medication. In the future, it will help prevent more infections if you would do larger water changes. Fifteen to twenty percent, is a rather small amount.

 

[Bignose]

Hi Chuck

Corys are pretty sturdy little fish, but they can get sick when their resistance becomes lowered due to any of a number of stressful conditions. These conditions will need to be remedied before you can expect to cure your fish.

Some examples of conditions that can lead to bacterial infections are low oxygen content in the water, elevated nitrate or nitrate levels, overstocking, overfeeding, temperature fluctuations, especially with rapid warming, aggressive tankmates, etc. I doubt that the medication you are using to treat the ich is doing them any good right now either.

Since your corys are the only ones effected at this time, why not move them into a quarantine tank and medicate them there? They probably never had the ich, so don't need treatment for it. A good broad spectrum antibiotic such as tetracycline, Kanamycin, etc. will cure the bacterial infection, but is apt to kill your beneficial bacteria. In the meanwhile, you will have the opportunity to clean up your tank before putting them back.

Edit: Please keep the water temperature below 75 degrees F. and maintain excellent aereation in the quarantine tank. Do frequent water changes and replace the medication. In the future, it will help prevent more infections if you would do larger water changes. Fifteen to twenty percent, is a rather small amount.

This is all excellent advice except the part I bolded. They may not have gotten any spots, but that certainly does not mean that you can assume they don't have ich. If there is even one ich that survives and lives in their gills, and then you reintroduce the catfish to the main tank, it may take a while, a long while even years. But, once something stressful happens -- say a heater breaks and the temp falls one evening -- and then the whole tank has ich again. This is the kind of incident that perpetuates the "dormant" ich myth or the myth that ich is in all tanks and all water.

If the catfish aren't showing any symptoms of ich, then I agree that taking them out and treating them with an antibacterial first to help ameliorate the fin rot/erosion is fine. But, before you reintroduce them to the main tank you either need to give them a full treatment of ich medication or quarantine them for at least a month to make sure that they don't start to show symptoms. Personally, I'd treat them. I'd treat them with ich medication for something like 10 days straight to make sure that you treat through at least two full ich lifecycles. This would ensure that there is no ich going back into the main tank.

 

[Inchworm]

This is all excellent advice except the part I bolded. They may not have gotten any spots, but that certainly does not mean that you can assume they don't have ich. If there is even one ich that survives and lives in their gills, and then you reintroduce the catfish to the main tank, it may take a while, a long while even years. But, once something stressful happens -- say a heater breaks and the temp falls one evening -- and then the whole tank has ich again. This is the kind of incident that perpetuates the "dormant" ich myth or the myth that ich is in all tanks and all water.

If the catfish aren't showing any symptoms of ich, then I agree that taking them out and treating them with an antibacterial first to help ameliorate the fin rot/erosion is fine. But, before you reintroduce them to the main tank you either need to give them a full treatment of ich medication or quarantine them for at least a month to make sure that they don't start to show symptoms. Personally, I'd treat them. I'd treat them with ich medication for something like 10 days straight to make sure that you treat through at least two full ich lifecycles. This would ensure that there is no ich going back into the main tank.

Hi Bignose,

This may or may not be true, (I won't enter that discussion here), but another thing is certain. Malachite green, one of the ingredients found in ich medications, is toxic to corys and some other fish. They absorb it into their systems and their livers have difficulty removing it .

I would rather take a chance on the future possibility of ich and spare the corys another round of poison, especially when they are showing signs of bacterial infection anyway.

 

[Bignose]

Sure malachite green is toxic to fish, so are a great deal of the medications we use. Heck, a lot of medications used to treat people are toxic to us. The idea behind most medications is to be toxic to a lot of things -- toxic enough to the parasitek to kill them, but not toxic enough to kill the host. That is, malachite green in the concentrations used to treat ich, stresses everything in the tank. The idea is that because ich is a lower life form, it will succumb to death at a lower level of stress than fish will.

But, you don't just have to use malachite green. There are formalin based treatments, and copper based treatments, and others out there.

But, I think that the science is awfully clear -- if a fish has been in a tank that had ich, it is best to assume that that fish has ich. If only to assume that that fish is a carrier that can re-infect other fish. I know that cories in general have a much higher resistance to ich than say tetras. But, I think that a great deal of the "dormant ich" stories can be traced back to situations such as this, where a fish is assumed not to have ich, and then it reinfects a tank as a carrier.

I did suggest an alternative to medicine -- and that is quarantine. If you quarantine the cories for at least a month after you separated them, that would be enough time to see if they develop symptoms or not. If they don't develop symptoms, then I think it is ok to assume that they aren't carrying it.

But, there is no way I'd reintroduce them any time soon after treating the main tank.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Bignose

Quarantine is always a good thing. If it would solve the problem of possible ick, the corys are being treated for a bacterial infection, so much the better.

These appear to be seriously weakened corys, so I wouldn't try using any of the products you mentioned at this time. Would salt, without raising the temperature, do anything as a preventative to a possible ick infection? That wouldn't hurt them for a short time and is often helpful when treating bacterial infection in corys.